GRADINA

IB

SETTING UP A SMALL GARDEN

At first glance, setting up a small garden can seem simple. However, you’d be surprised to find that small gardens offer you at least the same difficulties, if not greater than gardens with generous surfaces. When the beneficiaries of this garden asked the landscape designer Cosmin Coman to draw up a project of landscaping, the space outside the house had no function. It was a swampy land, a mix-match full of various types and species of plants: perennial flowers, softwood shrubs, a magnolia, a lemongrass, some large and small bamboos, some hydrangeas and lavender, in a word – a blend, left in stand-by, waiting for a specialist to turn this space for storage into a garden.

The main problem with small gardens in Bucharest is the lack of intimacy. All around you can find windows from which curious people peep, pay attention to whatever moves in the neighboring yard. In our case, this problem was an essential one, especially since the architecture of the facades of the house encourage curious onlookers, thanks to the large glass windows. Moreover, the beneficiary has a swimming pool in the western area and, together with the deck area, they should be protected from the prying eyes of the neighbors or passers-by who walk this street on a da-to-day basis.

The Client, a young cosmopolitan family that likes to spend their free time outdoors, wanted a space for socializing, for recreation, an intimate space that dialogues with the contemporary architecture of the house. Starting from this design theme, Coman proposed, on the one hand, to lower the 0 share of the garden to -0.40 and, and on the other hand, to build generous, tall concrete planters, that follow the line of the southern fence, precisely to close the perspective angle from the southern neighbors. The planters were to contain the Juniperus species found on the site. Also, to block the outlook from the street, the landscaper proposed another planter, smaller in size, in which he created a Bamboo wall with a height of over 2 meters. Moreover, concrete slabs were cut from the old alley, to create niches thus increasing the green space of the garden. In one of them, 5 Birch trees rise from a mass of ornamental grasses.

Once these demands were resolved, the landscaper took care of organizing the newly created space, which, in his view, had to be like an outdoor living room. To complete this specific picture, many elements were implemented, such as the lowering of the height by 40cm, the creation of planter walls with plants flowing or rising from them, the adding of stone steps, the support wall covered with wood, the big Liriodendron tree, rising from a Pennisetum massif, the stone slabs that lead you to a seemingly wooden bench, that is actually made of concrete, the console in the gardener’s wall, and the carpet-looking lawn, are all part of the induction of the idea of having an outdoor living. And if all those elements did not create that feeling, the landscaper decided to remain on the contemporary note and to create in the large planter, a 1.2 m niche that will be covered with stone, wall on which a canvas of water will flow. Moreover, considering the large surface of the deck, Coman proposed cutting it and breaking the concrete slabs to raise a spectacular species through shape and colors of Libocedrus.

Most of the plants that the beneficiary had already purchased were placed in the large planter, small additions being made to create diversity in it. After almost two months of design and execution, together with our friends from Natural Design, a small, contemporary garden was born, a space that invites you to socialize and recreate, a space that invites you home.

TEAM

Landscape Architecture: CMD/LA

Landscape Constructor: Natural Design